PRETORIA (Reuters) — His voice cracking
with emotion, Oscar Pistorius took the witness stand in his own defense
on Monday, saying the Valentine's Day shooting of his girlfriend last
year had left him sleepless, terrified and plagued by nightmares.

The disabled South African track star, on trial for murder, also
apologized to the mother of model Reeva Steenkamp, saying he fired
four times through a toilet door at his luxury Pretoria home in the
belief he was defending her from an intruder.

Steenkamp, a law graduate and model, was hit by at least three
rounds fired by Pistorius, one of which — to the head — killed her
almost instantly, the court has heard.

"I was simply trying to protect Reeva," Pistorius told the court at
the start of his testimony. Reeva's mother June Steenkamp, sitting
in the public gallery of the packed Pretoria courtroom, bowed her
head and remained steely-faced.

Since the shooting, 27-year-old Olympic and Paralympic star
Pistorius, who faces life in prison if convicted of murder,
testified he had been on anti-depressants and sleeping pills because
of his disturbed state of mind.

"I'm scared to sleep. I have terrible nightmares about things that
happened that night," he said. "I can smell blood. I wake up to
being terrified."

He recounted one occasion when he woke up so scared in the middle of
the night that he crawled into a cupboard before calling his sister,
who came round to sit with him.

"I wake up in a complete state of terror to the point that I would
rather not sleep," he added.

Earlier, during graphic forensic testimony from a defense
pathologist, Pistorius sat in the dock, retching into a bucket.

OBSESSION WITH GUNS

The distraught figure in the witness stand was a far cry from the
gun-obsessed, fast-living hot-head that prosecutors sought to
portray during the first 16 days of the trial.

As well as murder, Pistorius is accused of firing a pistol through
the sun roof of a friend's car while on a public road, and
discharging a handgun underneath the table of a packed Johannesburg
restaurant.